The decade from 2010 to 2019 saw some remarkably ambitious initiatives in all realms of aviation. While some, like the creation of the Gulfstream G650 ultra long-range jet, were spectacular successes, others, like the saga of the Solar Impulse global giants, were less so. Still, they reminded us that great accomplishments come only after overcoming great obstacles, which makes the successes all the sweeter.
1. Malaysia Air 370âs Disappearance
On March 8, 2014, a Boeing 777 airliner departed from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing, China, and after an hour it disappeared. The plane and its 239 occupants were never heard from again. The public interest in the mystery was unprecedented, drawing in millions of television viewers in prime time to follow the mystery and the theories, some bizarre, surrounding it. The theories were born of the fact that there was no imaginable reasonable explanation for the planeâs disappearance. Under normal circumstances, there were multiple ways for pilots to communicate with air traffic control facilities, none of which were used, and all of the flight tracking hardware that normally helps keep tabs on such flights went silent inexplicably. Two main theories emerged, that a cascading mechanical failure perhaps caused by a fire had disabled the communications of the plane while leaving it able to fly, presumably on autopilot, for many hours. The second theory is that the captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, had orchestrated the event as a bizarre suicide mass murder, a theory that seems to command the argument today. The theory that the plane continued to the Indian Ocean, where it crashed, was confirmed when parts of the 777 washed up on island beaches far to the west.
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